


To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

by hologramophone



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Wolf Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-14
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 11:18:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/638324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hologramophone/pseuds/hologramophone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>based on <a href="http://torakodragon.tumblr.com/post/40471131624/3-times-this-week-derek-has-found-stiles">this post</a> by the awesome fanartist <a href="http://torakodragon.tumblr.com">Torakodragon</a>:</p>
<p>"3 times this week, Derek has found Stiles sleepwalking.</p>
<p>3 times this week, Derek carries him home.</p>
<p>At least Stiles isn’t the kind to sleep naked."</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: Now with illustrations included!! (Thank you to [Torakodragon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TorakoDragon/profile)!)

Derek goes for midnight runs when he can’t sleep.

He can’t sleep most nights.

In wolf-form, he’s less conspicuous, just a dark blur darting through the trees in the forest, and he runs and runs until he’s too exhausted to dream about smoke and ash.

He stays in the woods mostly, but sometimes he ventures closer to the houses at the edge of the trees, just to see the neighborhoods quiet and dark, the streetlights flooding empty roads, and the only sounds are the crickets in their yards.

And sometimes he visits his pack members houses just to see that they’re asleep, so he can know that their nights are at least more restful than his.

Then he runs back home again, to collapse on his bare mattress in his broken house, tired and heaving and human.

So the night that he’s flying through the woods at the edge of BHHS’s soccer field and he sees a figure standing in the center, Derek almost careens into a tree.

He twists and narrowly misses it instead. When he scrabbles his way off the forest floor, the figure is still standing there, arms lifting and swinging in tandem as if casting an imaginary fishing line.

Derek lopes forward cautiously, scenting the air. As he gets closer it grows stronger, the smell of Old Spice, Cheetos, and  _Stiles_. Derek huffs in confusion, until he registers Stiles’ sleep-steady heartbeat, sluggish movements as he appears to dream about playing lacrosse. He’s not even wearing  _shoes_.

Derek listens carefully for any other heartbeats in the area, and when there aren’t any he circles in front of Stiles and whuffs softly.

Stiles’ only reaction is to mumble a stream of incoherent syllables. Derek  _might_ guess that he hears the words  _Scott_  and  _first-line_  though, and then Stiles proceeds to launch another several lacrosse balls halfheartedly over him.

It’s not freezing out, but Beacon Hills at night isn’t exactly balmy either. All Stiles has on is a t-shirt and a pair of bright-red boxers. He barks again, louder this time, but Stiles sleepwalks like the dead apparently, and there’s probably a zombie joke in there somewhere that Stiles would never let him pass up, but he’s a mile and a half away from home and even more defenseless than normal.

Derek circles behind Stiles and nudges his back, pushing him in the direction of home. All it does is make Stiles stumble forward, and then he stands there arms limp and head tipped forward. Derek tries again, to the same effect, and again until he finally gives up and trots in front of Stiles, sitting back on his haunches and scooting into his shins until Stiles loses his balance and flops onto Derek’s back.

His fingers dig into Derek’s fur the instant he lands, and satisfied that Stiles won’t slide off, Derek lopes back into the woods. No sense in alarming the townspeople - Derek’s the size of a small horse in wolf-form, and late-night equestrian activities would probably get noticed.

Over the whistling of the air in Derek’s ears, he can hear Stiles’ soft snores, the occasional mumble about ‘strawberry-blonde locks’ followed by nuzzling into Derek’s fur, and soon enough he comes to a stop in the trees behind the Stilinski house.

The sheriff’s heartbeat on the second floor tells Derek that he’s asleep as well, and since there’s no way to leap onto the roof without knocking Stiles off, he approaches the back door quietly. He huffs as he noses it open - Stiles didn’t even bother to shut it completely on his way out. Derek pads across the hardwood as lightly as he can, slips up the staircase and into Stiles’ room. He winces when the door creaks, loud as a shot to his ears, but the sheriff’s heartbeat stays steady down the hall.

Derek sidles up to the bed and lowers that side of his body, but Stiles has a limpet-grip on his fur and only slides a few inches. He tries again, and gains another few inches, before he finally does a full-body shake and Stiles tumbles onto the covers. Still he doesn’t wake, just turns over and hugs the pillow to himself.

Derek snorts in disbelief. And then he crosses the room, now that there’s no fragile cargo on his back, paws the window open and leaps down to the ground, and takes off back to his own cold, barely-habitable bed.

It’s not until he gets there and shifts back, does he feel the still-drying smear of drool right over his tattoo.

**

If Stiles knows about being carried home, he doesn’t show it. Not at the next pack meeting, not when Derek shows up at his house to take a look at the bestiary. So Derek accepts the ‘what happened at midnight stays at midnight’ silent agreement or whatever it is, and his nightly runs go on without further incidence.

It’s not until weeks later, when Derek’s passing by one of the subdivisions that skim the forest does he glimpse Stiles’ familiar figure between the houses. It’s not too far from Stiles’ own neighborhood, and after a moment Derek recognizes it as where Scott and his mom live. Or close to it, rather - Stiles must be making his way there. He huffs in annoyance when he realizes Stiles is barefoot and in his pajamas again, and Derek watches him from a distance until his conscience gives in. A Stiles that gets run over by a car is of no use to anyone, he tells himself, creeping along the shadows of the houses.

He walks right in front of Stiles as he’s cutting through someone’s backyard, and Stiles bounces off his flank and stumbles backward. Derek strides towards him again to try and herd him towards the woods, but as he brushes against him, Stiles’ hands shoot out and bury themselves in his back. Derek stills. Stiles eyes are still heavy-lidded when he looks over his shoulder at him, and then he’s drowsily leaning over Derek’s back, scraping his toes against his leg like he’s looking for a stirrup.

Derek sighs, as much as wolves can sigh. He bends his legs until he’s low enough for Stiles to climb on, and then he’s slinking back through the shadows into the woods, carrying him home under cover of darkness and foliage.

Derek sneaks out the window again after shaking Stiles off, when Stiles mumbles something that sounds like “Der-” behind him. Derek spins around, ears perked and waiting, but all he hears for the next minute is soft snoring and that steady heartbeat.

He leaves and runs home.

**

There’s no reason for him to. Stiles has probably been sleepwalking since he was a kid, and he’s come out fine, for the most part. Derek’s sure that the sheriff knows about it and Scott probably does too, and it rains all the time in Beacon Hills, so there’s no reason for Derek to lay there listening to the steady shower and worrying about Stiles. His subconscious probably knows better than to wander outside in a rainstorm.

Probably.

Derek is half-shifted by the time he gets out the door.

The rain only gets heavier as he runs, and when he finally skids to a halt in Stiles backyard and sees the door cracked open, Derek has to suppress a howl of frustration. The sheriff’s car isn’t in the driveway, so he must not know that Stiles is out wandering in the rain. Derek spins and takes off into the woods again, and runs. He can’t even track Stiles by scent with this rain, so he runs to the high school, and he runs to Scott’s, where he hears heartbeats slow and safe, but none the familiar pattern of Stiles’, and he runs to the sheriff’s station, and Deaton’s. He even runs to the Martin girl’s house, even though Stiles swears loudly these days that he’s over her, and Derek never hears the hitch of a lie in his chest anymore.

He doesn’t hold back the howl this time, letting it sound long and low in the night. But the rain is coming down in sheets by now, crashing torrents that drown out sound and beat down on Derek’s back. There’s just one place he hasn’t looked, and when he realizes it, it hits him like a freight train, feet scrabbling in the dirt in his haste to change direction.

Derek hasn’t come here since the funerals, and he and Laura had taken the car and left right after. He hasn’t visited since he’s been back. He wonders if Laura did before…before. And  _she’s_  buried here. Derek hates this place. But he should’ve thought of it sooner.

He hurtles down the rows of gravestones, slowing only past the mausoleum where their ashes are kept. He almost misses Stiles entirely. His huddled body is tucked in between the headstone that says ‘Stilinski’ and a large granite urn that’s overflowing with water.

Derek approaches carefully. Stiles has his arms wrapped around his knees and his head lowered, and Derek can’t tell if he’s even awake or not but he’s shaking like a leaf. Derek butts his head against Stiles’ knees to get him to look up, to see him, but Stiles shakes his head and holds himself tighter. Derek leans down and swipes his tongue across Stiles’ lowered face, tasting salty warmth mixed with the freezing rain. He whines, wrapping his giant body around him to shield him from the downpour and keep in some of the heat, and minutes pass, maybe hours, before Stiles finally reaches out and grips his fur, tugging until Derek lowers himself down.

Stiles climbs on wordlessly. He buries his face into Derek’s back, and Derek wishes he had his jacket, anything to keep the rain from hitting Stiles where he’s sprawled out on top of him. He runs as fast as he can without jostling Stiles, and when he finally deposits him in the middle of his room, Stiles sits there, wet and dripping.

“The whole house is gonna smell like wet dog,” he mutters dazedly, even as his teeth chatter furiously.

Derek huffs and digs through Stiles’ closet, pulling down the warmest things he can find with his teeth and dropping them in Stiles’ lap.

When Stiles shakily peels off his shirt, Derek turns to the window, satisfied that Stiles is safe where he belongs. He takes one last glance back to see Stiles stumbling towards the bed, before he hops out onto the roof and races home.

**

There’s too much smoke, Derek can hardly see in front of him, not even with how bright the fire is around him. Through it he thinks he can see them, thinks he can reach them in time, maybe if he just reaches a hand out he can save them, but the woman that he pulls forward is wearing lipstick that’s too red, her smile too sharp and Derek wants to get away-

He wakes up gasping.

There’s only one thing to do, and Derek gets up and goes downstairs. He’s still out of it enough that he’s already tensing into the shift on the front porch when he realizes he’s not alone. Stiles is standing at the edge of the clearing in front of the house.

He’s surprised to see him sleepwalking already - the betas had told him Stiles was out of school all week with pneumonia, and he shouldn’t be well enough to be wandering around yet. Derek strides forward ready to shift to take him home, when he realizes Stiles is staring at him, heart beating erratically and very much awake.

He ends up stopping several yards away still, suddenly unsure how to deal with a Stiles that’s awake, or as a human himself.

It’s Stiles that speaks first. “I usually just walk back home eventually,” he says. “I’m like a pigeon, with homing instincts or whatever.”

Derek stares, nodding when he realizes that’s appropriate. “You knew, then?” he asks.

The moon is low and bright tonight, and he can see the flush that creeps up Stiles’ face. “I didn’t while it was happening. It was just a couple of times, right? I woke up in the morning covered in black wolf hair. You’re the only one with black fur. Also, you left the window open.”

_Oh_ , Derek thinks.  _I probably should have shut that. Just no opposable thumbs at the time._ “Sorry,” he mutters.

“It’s okay, I have a lint brush,” Stiles says with a grin, before it drops. “How’d you know I was there last week?”

Derek looks up at Stiles’ open expression, and the answer comes out before he has time to think about it. “You weren’t anywhere else that I looked.”

Stiles’ eyes widen. “You mean you were out- In the rain-“

“I go for runs. I can’t sleep sometimes,” Derek rushes to say, trying to cover the fact that he was prepared to tear Beacon Hills apart at the thought of Stiles lost in the rain.

Stiles continues to stare. “Okay,” he says, finally. “Okay. Me neither. Well, I can’t just  _be_  asleep, I guess.”

“You should go home, Stiles,” is all he can bring himself to say. Except he thinks of Stiles walking all the way home alone, and he stares at the ground and runs a hand through his bedhead. “I can carry you back, uh, if you want-“

“Actually, can you walk with me?” Stiles interrupts.

 The look on his face is hopeful and nervous when Derek looks up. He thinks suddenly  how much he wants to protect Stiles and shield him from all the terrible things that befall them. And he thinks how he’s never had a nightmare after he takes Stiles home, how he always sleeps peacefully afterwards with the feeling of a warm weight on his back, lulled to sleep by the heartbeat still in his ears.

Maybe Stiles is protecting him too.

“Okay,” Derek says, and steps forward. “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me at my [tumblr](http://hologramophone.tumblr.com) =)


End file.
